Facing Your Fear

Fear is strong in the collective right now. It's in the air. You can see it in the eyes of your neighbor, standing just out of reach. As uncomfortable as that may feel (especially for you sensitive souls out there), please take heart. When something arises so strongly in the collective like this, it acts like a huge magnifying glass, making it impossible to ignore what's been there all along. Denial, one of the strongest of defense mechanisms, stops working. When defenses stop working, things start to get real. We're being given an opportunity for some very deep, very necessary clearing.

For a while now, we've been standing between two worlds. We all know the old ways don't work. They're not sustainable. Our systems leave too many behind. They're unfair. They force us to compete rather than relate in the way our hearts are designed to. The balance between feminine and masculine ways of knowing and being is out of whack. We know things have to change, but we don't know how. We might sense in our hearts new ways of relating and new ways of living, but the structures to support those new ways don't exist yet. We don't know how to get from here to there, and it's an uncomfortable place. We're crossing a great, unknowable divide. It takes a lot of faith to take that leap. We can't do it if we're weighed down with fear. Enter a pandemic....

The hidden fears that have been there all along suddenly come into focus. Fear of loss. Fear of being left behind. Fear of being out of control. Fear of vulnerability. Fear of being alone. Fear of poverty. Fear of death. All the ways in which we mistrust life and each other are fully revealed. We can no longer ignore them. We must finally face them, one way or another.

To help with this transition, I want to share some tools I've learned for clearing fear from your energetic field. I also want to point out some of the pitfalls you might encounter along the way, and some of the common bypasses we creatively employ so that we can tell ourselves we're doing the work, without actually doing it. I encourage you to really take advantage of this opportunity, for yourself, your loved ones and the entire world.

The Energy of Fear

It's important to understand that fear is a denial of life. Energetically, fear is a withdrawal response. It pulls us back or turns us away. It's an avoidance mechanism. Fear says, "life can't be trusted," or "I must control the flow of life or bad things will happen." Fear will tell you it's not safe for you to be here. Fear stems the flow of life and of your energy, and therefore your own creative power of choice. It creates a void space in your field.

But life cannot be denied. The energy and force of life moving through you is why you're here. It's your purpose and your pleasure. The place where you're denying life is the place where you're denying yourself. You're holding yourself back. Life, in its wisdom and loving presence, wants to dance with all of you. It's also willing to meet you wherever you're at, and gently draw you forward. It meets you by bringing you whatever you fear, so you can realize you're greater than the fear and stop holding yourself back.

The mechanism for that to happen is put into place the moment you withdraw in fear, because void spaces act like magnets. The void space you create in your field by withdrawing your energy works like a magnet, drawing experiences that most closely match that vibration....i.e., the very thing you fear. In this way, life brings you what you need to experience in order to stop being afraid of it.

Clearing the Fear

To really face any fear, you must first stop turning away from whatever it is you don't want to see or experience. To do that, you need to cultivate faith. Faith says, "I am whole and complete no matter what happens," and "I can trust life, even if it takes me down paths I don't understand just yet." Faith embraces life, on life's terms. It allows you to show up fully, no matter what's happening. In doing so, you bring all of your light and all of your power with you. That makes it easier for good things, like miracles, to happen.

In my experience, we can be proactive about facing our fears or we can wait for them to come to us. Either way works. If you want to be proactive, here's how to do it:

1. Identify the fear. The first step is just bringing awareness to the places you're holding fear. If you're committed to rooting out your fears, this part becomes easy, although it takes some practice initially. With consistent effort, you'll start to recognize you're having a fear response while it's happening or shortly after. You'll notice you're withdrawing from something or someone. You'll feel a flutter in your chest, or you'll notice the ways in which your body signals you that you're going into a fear response. Be aware this is a common place to side-step the work. If something feels very frightening, it's common to tell ourselves we're not even afraid of it. We bury it deep and pretend it's not there at all to avoid having to face something that seems overwhelming. We can be very clever about this too, going about our lives as if nothing is wrong, telling ourselves we're choosing love over fear or choosing to think positively. If you suspect you might be doing this, pretend the event or experience you're denying you fear is actually happening to you right now and pay attention to what's happening in your body. If you feel calm and accepting, even if it's something you wouldn't want to experience, this likely isn't a place you're holding fear. Otherwise, it likely is. In my experience, we're all holding FAR more fear than we're conscious of.

2. Create some sacred space, and set your intention to clear the fear. I've spoken about creating sacred space and intention setting many times, so I won't go into it here. In short, make some time for yourself, call upon your spiritual guide team, be clear that you want to clear this fear from your field, and open to their help. You can also read "Creating an Altar" or "Creating Sacred Space" or check out my Creating Sacred Space meditation.

3. Feel the fear. Let yourself actually feel the fear rise in your body. Don't run away from it. This part will feel uncomfortable. The challenge is to feel the discomfort and still not run away from it. See if you can locate where the fear lives in your body and breathe into that part of your body. Just keep breathing and allowing the fear to rise. This part is hard. Most of us are highly defended against feeling fear. Running away has become automatic. Try to override the old program. Stay with the fear. Keep allowing your light and your energy to come into the place of fear. Meet it head-on. Try to trust life, even when it looks ugly. This is also a place where we can side-step the process by thinking about the fear rather than feeling it. If you really want to clear it, you've got to feel it. Your body will let you know if you're there. (If you'd like support in this process, you can book an appointment here. I know how hard this is, and I'm happy to hold space for you.)

4. Surrender and accept. This is equally hard, as it requires setting aside your self-will and your pride and finding a willingness to accept life on its terms, even if you don't like it. It means developing a true sense of trust in life. It means letting go of what you think you want and trusting that what you really need is whatever life brings you. This step may take you days, weeks or months to complete. It's the hard, soul work, but it's so worth the effort. What works for me is imagining in great detail the thing I fear happening, acknowledging all the feelings it would bring up for me (sadness, loneliness, more fear, etc.), and making a choice to trust anyway. I say to myself, "This is not something I choose to experience, but I trust that if it comes to me regardless, it's because there are gifts in the experience that are worth the challenge it will present to me." Reach for the place that trusts divine plan, trusts your guides, trusts life, trusts that you're experiencing exactly what you need to experience in order to grow. Do your best to let go into that trust. Stay with whatever it is until you reach some level of acceptance that your worst fear might come to pass, and you will face it and be OK anyway. Remember, surrender is a spiritual practice that can take years or even lifetimes to master.

You may need to return to this process repeatedly before the fear is completely clear. It helps if you think of it as a growth process. We're all remarkably willful, and surrendering our will to a higher power is an advanced spiritual skill. Know that each time you do this work, you're removing some of the charge around the fear, and filling some of the void space with your own light and the vibration of trust. Light and trust are beautiful magnets that bring lovely things.